


You used to say (Holy Fuck)

by trubenblack



Series: The Good and The Bad [4]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Past Character Death, Past Child Abuse, Past Torture, canon tags apply
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 21:49:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16395731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trubenblack/pseuds/trubenblack
Summary: Neil was drowning.orNeil has a day filled with memories when life's pressures get to be too much





	You used to say (Holy Fuck)

Neil was drowning. That was the only thing he could feel. He’d actually drowned once before, he can remember his mother screaming, “ _ Swim Stefan! Swim!”  _ then the sudden pain of a bullet passing through his shoulder. He had made a rookie mistake, and breathed in to scream. He was still underwater, he had twisted and coughed and his lungs had burnt him so badly. He had been waiting for his eyes to explode inside his head at the fucking  _ pain  _ that was everywhere, filling his head with water he hadn’t even managed to breathe in yet, and then, there was the cold darkness. He had been dead for almost a minute when Mary finally found him. He’d woken to three cracked ribs from the CPR and a bullet wound being tugged back together once his mother had him breathing again. On that particular night, she had held him tight to her, after she’d finished beating him over the fact that he’d allowed himself to get shot. Once she was asleep, he had cried, wishing he had just died, and it would be over. He had never told Andrew about that.

Neil was drowning; the universe was too much for him. He had been co-captain for a year, consistently fighting to have some sort of  _ control,  _ over the team. When Neil was 8, his mother had bought him a bike, he had ridden it as fast as he could, around the lake near their house, he was good riding, quick and controlled like he was when he ran. Until one day the bike got tangled in a stick that got caught in the spokes, he had gone straight over the handlebars, hitting his chin on a rock as he landed in the lake. He was used to pain at this point, his vision went black briefly, and then he was back to normal. But the  _ cold,  _ he’d never lost control over something without having some sort of punishment, but his father liked his knives, his mother liked to use her fists. Water was new, he’d never felt the freezing water suddenly clear his head, this mistake, was his alone, for now. Later he had had to go home with a bleeding chin and a slightly battered bike. His father had thrown his bike at him, taking his legs out from below him. They’d had huge bruises for weeks. 

Neil was drowning. Any words said to him slipped past him like they were barely there, he couldn’t hear over his panic. When Mary taught Neil how to swim properly, she taught him in an ocean in the dead of night. It had been freezing, but he had followed her orders, the strongest strokes he could give in his 10-year-old body. He had only ever felt this kind of breathless when he fell in the lake that one time. Then, he had swum into a rip. He had panicked, screaming for his mother as he got pulled out to sea, he tried to swim against the rip, he heard his mother yelling something at him but he couldn’t  _ hear  _ her. They were words, telling him what to do, she had to know what to do she always did, but he couldn’t hear her. He splashed around spluttering, trying to find her in the dark. Eventually she had grabbed him, swimming out after him. He had been safe. She had beaten him something fierce after that experience. Afterward she had taught him. “Never swim against a rip Abram, swim parallel to the shore until you feel yourself get out of it.” He had never had to test that bit of knowledge again; they stuck to breaking into public pools or using local lakes after that.

Neil was drowning. He couldn’t admit it to anyone he couldn’t show it. He was still  _ owned, _ even after his father had died. He was still drowning in his own blood.  After Seattle, Neil had driven as fast as he could, his mother breathing weirdly on the backseat. He’d never truly seen her show any weakness, he didn’t know what to do with it. He turned to look at her once, but her voice, ever sharp, had yelled, “Eyes on the road Alex.” And so he had kept his eyes on the road, until he stopped on the beach. He watched his mother take her final breaths to the sounds of the sea rolling in. He had heard the car burning, the gasoline popping and hissing as skin and car seats all burned and melted together. Once the fire had died out, before he pulled her bones from the car, he had collapsed on his knees into the seawater, with tear streaks that he washed away, and he had screamed, before realizing just what a bad idea that was. So he had pulled himself up, and forced himself onwards. He was a Josten now, and Jostens stopped for no one. 

Neil was  _ burning,  _ he was burning up from the inside out, every barb thrown at him by a new recruit, every time his opponents yelled his old name at him, it burned him from the inside out. He had been burned many times before, but the first time was a cigarette. It hadn’t been on purpose, someone had been smoking and a two-year-old Neil had gotten under their feet, he still had the faint scar on his leg from where they had dropped it. Mary had almost killed the man who burnt him, where Nathan had simply laughed and said it was Neil’s own fault for being in the way. Mary had told him this story many years later, to remind him to never do something foolish like that again. 

Neil was burning, he sometimes couldn’t look at some of the foxes without seeing his past misdeeds, he couldn’t see Allison without seeing Seth. He couldn’t see Kevin without remembering that they were both completely controlled by the Moriyamas. He had told Andrew about the second time he was burned. He was 6 and he hadn’t sat still enough. There had been a police raid; his mother hadn’t even ceased in ironing Nathan’s suit shirt. It was a normal thing for them. Neil hadn’t even been twitching because they were there, he had simply wanted to go to his room, but his twitching had caught the eye of a young officer who had come over to ask him his name, simply being kind to the skinny little kid who had too much energy. There weren’t even any bad questions; she just asked him what his favorite animal was (a fox, even then). Nathan had not been happy; when they had left he had grabbed the iron from Mary and slammed it into Neil’s side. He had never felt such all-consuming pain. He had screamed until his father had knocked him out just to shut him up.

Neil was burning. He was burning with rage at the fact that the Aaron had never apologised for comparing him to Drake, when he would never, ever, be someone like  _that_. When Neil was 16, his mother had gotten so angry. He had been late home, he had been hanging out with friends, trying to  _ fit in _ , as he had screamed as she slammed him backwards, his arm glancing off the stovetop. Lola had later covered the burn. His mother had never apologized for it, had blamed him for it. He was too clumsy, had fallen back when he should have stood still and taken his punishment for breaking the rules. He had held back his tears and had answered with a soft  _ “yes ma”.  _ She had let him eat that night though, so he figured he was forgiven. They moved cities not too much later. 

Neil was burning. He was going to kill Jack, he was really sure of it, if he said another thing about Neil being disgusting, he was really going to lose it. Neil didn’t have a serious issue with his looks, his scars mad him not his father, but he had heard enough negative comments that it became hard to ignore them on bad days. When Lola had burned his face, she had done it as a promise. The pain racing up his jaw, burning his brain, his whole body until all he could feel was fire. She had burned his outside until it matched the burnt and marred boy within. Neil had screamed until his throat was raw and bleeding, but he had never given up his true family. He had felt the most terror he had ever felt that night, but it had made him himself, so he wasn’t one to complain.

Neil was falling; he was becoming weaker every day, creating bonds to people who could be used against him. He was terrified of losing his family. He was falling into a trap the he didn’t regret. When he was 15 he had been captured by Jackson, he had been shoved into a car, but they hadn’t tied him up, just assuming he was weak. He had been weak, weaker than he was now. But that didn’t stop him from throwing himself from the car while it was going full speed. There was a moment of just nothing, as he was falling. He felt weightless, and then, there was pain. His whole chest ripped to shreds on the ground. He hadn’t even stopped to allow himself to scream. He had dragged himself up and run with unsteady feet all the way back to his mother. 

Neil was falling. He was falling for a boy with blonde hair and strong fingers. He was falling for the smell of cigarette smoke and softly spoken  _ yes or no’s?  _ he was falling for someone who had never scared him. But this, this love, it scared him. He sat on the roof, and imagined himself falling. He was drowning, he was burning and he was falling. He didn’t know whether to run or to fall. In the end he did nothing, he just sat and shook, the laws of inertia beating him for once. A hand on his neck calmed the shaking. A soft Neil spoken in a voice that meant home, loud enough in Neil’s head to push back the memories. He rattled in a breath and tried to see. It took him a minute until he could focus on pools of amber instead of seeing his fathers face as he threw Neil into a wall. Neil tried to speak, but Andrew got to it first.

“Neil. Breathe.”

And there it was. It was just that simple. All he had to do was breathe. He was Neil Josten. He had drowned, he had burned, and he had fallen, over and over and over again. But this was a kind of falling he wasn’t too worried about. The rest of the world could burn him to the bone, the voices of his team, the deals he has had to make to keep himself alive. They all float around him, in the real world. But here, on this roof, all there is, is. Tomorrow he would go to the court, and try to stop himself from murdering Jack or Kevin, but here right now. He had Andrew to keep him warm without burning, to help him breathe without drowning, and to give him something to fall for, without being hurt.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed! please please leave comments i live for them, and kudos
> 
> follow me on tumblr @trubenblack if you want to shoot me an ask I would love that


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